With each of her article garnering over hundred thousands of views, tens of thousands of votes, and just as many comments, Son Seungwan who goes by her pen name Wendy Son, is one of the most accomplished tabloid writer of her generation. Her unique blend of quirkiness, criticalness and sometimes satirical style of writing was what made the young writer stood out from the rest.

This, she alluded and credited the education she had obtained from overseas.

Aside from that, Wendy was famed to be an impartial and rather accurate writer. Most Korean tabloid writers were usually simply just harsh but their articles were superficial and sometimes, misleading. Clickbait, was the term used to describe them.

Yet, all it took was a simple mistake that almost costed Wendy her title. The young tabloid writer had not expected that in her hastiness and carelessness in creating media sensation, she would receive a personal visit from a top celebrity.

It began from a few months back when Wendy started her trail and began vocalising her opinions of a popular female solo Korean pop idol, Irene. Wendy has a natural tendency to pay finer attention to female celebrities and bases her articles on her gathered sources as well as from reading their personalities through their televised appearance. Most of the time, Wendy was accurate. Most.

It was 6:30 in the morning when her door bells starting ringing. Thinking that it might have been some insomniac neighbour, Wendy drifted out of bedroom and went to answer the doorbell mindlessly. Which was why, the tabloid writer had been in her oversized pullovers and sweatpants when she came face to face with the god-like beauty before her, already fully decked in an overcoat, ribbed turtle neck inner wear and a very expensive-looking pair of boots.

With her eyes widened to the size of golf balls and in her stunned state, Wendy swung her door shut immediately upon reflex. Her heart pounded wildly and the tabloid writer then began slapping her face multiple times to make sure she was not dreaming.

Who the was that? Why did she look so familiar? Am I in a ing dream?

As she reconstructed her visitor’s appearance in her mind again, Wendy became darn sure of who her visitor was. From the moment the visitor’s piercing eyes had zeroed in on Wendy, the writer already knew. This was a set of eyes that she had been studying from stacks and stacks of photos all day and night. They were the eyes of Irene Bae, the super popular K-Pop idol, the celebrity Wendy has been critiquing lately.

Wendy’s mind suddenly went into overdrive. She had been called into the public relations or whatever relations offices of entertainment company’s several times, in exchange for Wendy to water down her content but this was the first ever time a celebrity had visited her in person. Not to mention at 6:30 in the morning.    

Her doorbell rang again, this time it rang twice consecutively, perhaps conveying her visitor’s annoyance at having the door slammed shut in her face.

One might think that Wendy is a very assertive and all-mighty person when reading her articles but if you got to know the writer in person, she could be a nervous wreck especially when she deemed the situation out of her control. This situation was not within her control in the slightest bit. Inhaling in deeply and fanning her face to calm herself down, Wendy chanted a series of ‘it will be okay’ to herself before turning opening the door again, this time round, just a fraction of it. Wendy poked her head out, her eyes not daring to meet the visitor’s but she was certain the celebrity was staring at her intently because Wendy could feel it.

“May I ask of you to invite me in, Wendy? At the very least? You know who I am, don’t you?” The idol asked, there was a hint of exasperation in her voice.

Wendy nodded, eyes still not meeting the celebrity’s eyes as she opened the gates gingerly.

This was ridiculous, Wendy was in her own territory so why should she be so afraid of an uninvited guest. Wendy decided to brave herself up a little but her words did not come out quite as she had intended them to.

“Yes, I know who you are. How did you find out my address?” She tried to look annoyed but when she saw that look in the celebrity’s eyes, the courage she had mustered up had died down and she added, “if I may ask.”

Wendy then saw a flicker or surprise in the celebrity’s eyes and slight softening of her expression but it had only lasted for a few seconds before she assumed her air of haughtiness once more.

“Through a series of connections.” The celebrity answered bluntly.

“Oh…”

Silence passed between them and Wendy had not realised that she was beginning to stare at the idol. Despite having seen Irene in numerous pictures during her research, Wendy found herself drawn to the idol in real life. Irene’s beauty was no kidding, like an angel descended from the heavens, a reincarnation of Greek Goddess of Beauty, Aphrodite, or the beautiful Chinese Snake Goddess, Nüwa. Wendy shook her head in her attempt to clear her mind from such references.

Yet, Wendy was once again completely enraptured by the idol’s beauty when her rose-bud lips had parted when she seemed about to speak. Wendy’s mouth almost opened with hers however upon some contemplation, the idol clamped her lips together again.

“W-What?” Wendy had blurted out, almost as if in disappointment at not hearing the idol’s voice.

“I came here on my own accord,” the idol finally spoke again then after a pause, she continued, “I read your latest article about me.”

Wendy’s eyes shot open to its full size and she gulped dramatically. The article that she had written about Irene was in summary, a piece that critiqued the idol’s recent poor attitude, especially with regards to her responses to hosts and also to fellow industry peers. Since Irene was a solo Korean pop idol, she was often invited to shows with several other group artistes or soloists. In the article, she even stretched back to as far as Irene’s poor attitude during her pre-debut days, all of which were from “trusted” sources.

Wendy’s usually witty mind had been tossed into further disarray at those words. Her eyes shifted about as she thought about how to respond to the idol and she chose to say the stupidest thing ever. “How was it?”

A huge look of surprise crossed the idol’s face. However even in her startled state, the idol was still so pretty with her dazzling, rounded eyes staring right back at Wendy.

“H-How was it?” The idol repeated then after pondering for a while, added, “I guess I was not too happy about it?”

Wendy kept her head down low as multiple thoughts swirled in her mind. For an idol like Irene to visit Wendy and answer so truthfully, was truly unlike what the writer had thought of the idol. Besides, their interactions thus far, had been rather controlled. Somewhere in Wendy’s mind, she was beginning to doubt the judgement of Irene that she had put into her writing

“Anyway, the purpose in my visit here is to dispel whatever ill thoughts you have about me. I have heard about you and know your reputation just as well as you have assumed mine. So, I am going to do things my way and make an offer to you to follow me around for seven days and get to know me.”

“O-Offer?” Wendy clarified.

Irene nodded primly. “To be honest, you cannot really decline, because then, I would pay for a writer to counter-write and call out your article about me as a sham.”

Wendy blinked and she traversed through the sea of curse words in her mind. The writer also recalled from her research that this celebrity, Irene, was known to be quite feisty and was glad that this part of her that Wendy wrote, was accurate. However, Wendy also found this aggressive side of Irene to be attractive.

The writer soon found herself smiling instead and her curiosity about Irene went up.

Wendy was jerked back to reality when Irene had prodded her. “So are you willing to listen to what I am going to offer you?”

“F-Fine, I will hear you out on your offer,” Wendy said.

Irene nodded her head curtly, “I have a schedule soon, so I will go through the details with you later. I will come by your place again at night.”

Wendy nodded her head as she tried to absorb whatever the idol had just said but before she knew it, Irene had stood up to leave. The host could only follow the guest and held the door open for her, as a gentleman would.

“Have a good day,” Irene had said as she put on her boots deftly and strode out of view.

After the idol was completely out of sight, Wendy clamped her hands over either side of her head as she rebuked herself for her earlier behaviour. She had been extremely thrown off guard by the idol and was a completely nervous wreck. Wendy hoped that she had not appeared too wimpy or like a pushover. The offer that Irene had mentioned sounded rather reasonable only if it came with no other strings attached. Wendy’s mind began to run amok with other possibilities. If Irene had proven herself and Wendy was at fault, would the idol demand monetary compensation? Or would simply taking down the article suffice?

It had been a very long time since Wendy felt so small and to be truthful she knew part of the reason was because that particular piece of published write-up on Irene had been rather rushed and was heavily swayed by certain tip-offs. Initially, Wendy had been rather neutral about Irene, perhaps a little surprised about the idol’s recent change in attitude and researched a little but the idol’s life had been so private, it was hard to find out more about her.

Then, several tip-offs came her way, which, according to her source-gatherer, editor and aspiring journalist, Joy, were rather credible and so Wendy believed her. Joy had a flair for collecting tip-offs due to her numerous private sources. How the editor got all these sources, Wendy did not want to know. The last time she asked Joy, the story of the methods she used had involved a lot of kisses and other physical intimation.  

In Wendy’s latest article, she had mainly chronicled how the idol’s attitude had become snobbish towards idols who were promoting at the same time as her. She even dedicated two paragraphs to an anonymous source from an industry peer that supported how Irene was haughty and looked down on other female idols, especially one that was from her own company.

The next few paragraphs were Wendy’s observations on how the Idol’s behaviour towards senior celebrities have deteriorated. This was an opinion that was discovered by the public and Wendy decided to perpetuate it since it supports her first claim.

Her article was an instant hit, inviting numerous positive and negative remarks alike.

Sighing, Wendy then printed out the article she had written and began underlining the claims she had made against the idol and made sure to pay more mind to these things

They were several things that went out of Irene’s expectations. First, she already knew that Wendy was very pretty from the very the first she saw her however, she had not expected the writer to be so much prettier than she had remembered. Over the years, the tabloid writer seemed to have become even more good-looking in a pleasant way.

Second, Irene had expected herself to run into some kind of verbal spat when she came face to face with Wendy but had not expected the tabloid writer’s temperament to be so much softer than expected.

The idol had worked up her aggressiveness before she met the writer but when she left, they had nearly been extinguished completely and replacing it was a sort of lingering emotion. This was the third surprise, to put it mildly, Wendy had intrigued her more than she should and it was a bad thing. Irene was never one to feel easily, especially attraction towards anybody.

The idol hated to admit it but it was because she knew people were often after her physical appearance rather than for her true personality. She hated superficialities despite immersing herself in an industry which prizes it. Besides, this Wendy of a writer had written some very hurtful things about her. Things that, if only observed from the surface by a third party could be taken to be true and therefore it made Irene mad,